Historic bills keep changing and random huge Balance Adjustment has appeared with no explanation

On my recent bill I received two changes of £1314.65 each marked ‘balance adjustment’.  No further information given.

After a lot of phone calling, I was bounced between the OVO helpdesk and the old supplier helpdesk repeatedly.  No-one has been able to confirm what these charges are for - one operator suggested it represents an adjustment for the gas meter reading going up by 6.5% over the course of the last year, but even if applied retrospectively over every month for the last year represents a monthly billing increase of 160%!

I have raised a complaint but this in turn seems to have disappeared.  My confidence in OVO or SSE directly resolving this is pretty low.

My questions:

Is there any scenario where a small increase in a meter reading could result in a charge this large? 

Am I now at the point where I can put in a complaint with the ombudsman?  I seem to have exhausted all contact possibilities with OVO directly, and even after numerous calls no-one has been able to even explain this charge, let alone rescind it.  All my old supplier and OVO have done is blame the other, while confirming that the erroneous charge still stands.

Any help appreciated.

Being migrated to OVO has been a truly bad experience and despite having a “point of contact” for my complaint, nothing is happening.

1. I received a final balance notification for migration from SSE on 6th Jan 22 which was £178.55 in credit - My opening balance at OVO on 6th Jan 22 was £178.55 in debt.
2. There are other opening balances that do not match the previous closing balances.
3. Loads of bills are missing from the portal.
4. There are bills on the portal that differ to the bills emailed?
5. 2 card payments I made which appeared as credits on following bills were deleted months later leaving me in debt but no explanation.
6. Bills generated in July have been regenerated months later with different figures? Is that legal because I’ve already used them in VAT returns.
7. I get a letter telling me I am £60.05 in debt - so log on to pay… it clearly says pay £60.05 to clear the balance but looking at the current billing period, OVO has me at £300 debt again.

OVO is a mess and clearly has technical issues and struggle to manage finances appropriately.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or am I just “special”.

Cheers

Join the club.  After years of being perfectly happy with SSE, I find Ovo to be a shambles.  There’s a whole group over on Facebook with nearly 8,000 members and rising discussing their complaints.  

I keep hoping it’s teething problems following migration but I won’t hold my breath waiting on my current dispute being sorted and things improving in the future.

My account migrated from SSE to OVO  and there was an adjustment to my final statement from SSE where my account was incredit.  I have phoned OVO , and they said I would have to contact SSE final accounts department as they need to make the adjustment,  how can I do this if there is no contact for them. So my OVO account is showing in debit. I'm at breaking point trying to get this sorted I have only moved into property at the beginning of September prior to this there was no one living in property as there was a lot of renovation work being undertaken 

Hey @NewHome,

Sorry to hear of the issues you’re having,

Are you able to send across the final statement via webchat to the support team? We should be able to raise this to our billing team to investigate. Although we will need your previous supplier to send across the balance adjustment for us to add this to your current OVO account.

Hope this helps. 

I am in a similar position. I was in Credit with SSE to the tune of £251.26. After numerous phone calls (all documented) with OVO saying we can’t access SSE’s billing system, you’ll have to speak to them.

Eventually SSE claimed to have issued a cheque in May and that it was cashed in June.

Not by me. The number you want is 0345 070 7373 For some strange reason I was told I may need to prefix the number with 141 on my mobile which got me through. Good luck with this one I am also at m,y wits end with OVO claiming I owe them £200+

Grrrr

Hi tried this number and it just puts me through to call a diffrent number OVO, tried putting 141 but just cuts of , thanks for trying to help .

I'm at my wits end to,  SSE final statement in credit & OVO saying I owe them £400+ which l don't understand as we have only be living in the house since 1st September prior to that the house had no one living in it as it was having a complet renovations  right down to all electrical cables . 

GRRR doesn't come close

Hey,

Really sorry to hear of your experiences,

If you have your final statements please send these to OVO via webchat.

We’ll need to either raise a read dispute if the final and open reads are wrong, or a balance adjustment from your previous supplier if the amounts shown on the final and first bill differ. 

Our support team can chase this up for you. 

Just had yet another email telling me it will probably take 6 weeks to sort the incorrect bill then another 6 weeks to update my account!  So 3 months to rectify an obvious error.  Meantime my  credit I had built up has disappeared.  I had hoped to be able to reduce my direct debit a bit, but I guess that won’t be happening until this is finally resolved.

Hey @Maureen D,

The timeframe is frustrating, but I’m glad  to hear this is being resolved for you. 

The industry timeframe for a read dispute is 12-18 weeks. This is because it has to be agreed by your previous supplier and a third party in the industry.

It’s a necessary process to ensure your final bill and opening statement are correct. 

Hey @sta4d,

I’m sorry to hear of your bad experience,

You’ve done the right thing in raising a complaint and I hope this gets resolved for you as soon as possible.